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Elton John - SR-5 sighting

T-bone

T-bone

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Apr 12, 2005
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Elton John played Portland tonight, and I must say, it was difficult concentrating on him with the bassist in the back playing an SR-5. What's more, I believe he was playing through a Musicman 6/10. Couldn't see what the amp was, but based on everything else I saw, I'm pretty sure it was a Musicman too. Now here's the funny part. While I finally lost count how many times the guitar player changed guitars, the bass player changed only once. On the very last song. And what do you think he picked up - it was another SR-5. Only this one was black with a white pickguard.

Now why do you think he'd do that?

tbone
 
Flats & roundwound strings? I saw Lenny Kravitz's bass player do that; he changed from a Jazz to another Jazz, though.
 
...Maybe, So he could look cool :P

...oooooooorrrrrrrrrr maybe He has different EQ or the basses and he is very particular about not changing the tone of each bass?
 
I was watching the LIVE 8 DVD . During the Elton John set the bass player ( in full
shot most of the time) was playing a natural SR5 maple neck with Tort guard
 
Bob Birch on bass. He's played SR5's as long as I can remember. I believe he joined Elton in '92. I've seen him play a Blueburst SR5 back in the 1990's.
 
There was a programme on the other night called Stiff at the BBC - about Stiff record label artists. Two stingrays on show: Madness - the guy was using an unlined Stingray, and Ian Dury's chap using a nice burst ray too.....
 
HornetAMX said:
Bob Birch on bass. He's played SR5's as long as I can remember. I believe he joined Elton in '92. I've seen him play a Blueburst SR5 back in the 1990's.
Click to expand...

Bob Birch! thank's i couldn't remember his name, good player and almost always playing SR5's.
 
Bob Birch in Toronto, Canada

Well.....I saw Elton John in concert Saturday night in Toronto, Canada. Amazing concert! Of course Bob Birch was playing bass for him. I was excited to see that he plays Stingray5's, as I have a natural colored SR5 with piezo, Maple neck and headstock and white pearloid pickguard. He had two of them. I was surprised to see that both of them were without piezo bridges. His main one for the night was natural with a maple neck and headstock & a black pickguard His backup was a black one with a rosewood neck, maple headstock and white perloid pickguard. His speaker cab looked to be an SWR Goliath Senior with 6x10 speakers and horn tweeter, with a four foot high rack that was loaded. SWR amp, Korg rackmount tuner, and a load of other stuff I couldn't make out.
 
The bass switch may have been from fretted to fretless...We just did some work for Bob on 2 SR5's. Fretted and toofless.
 
That would make sense. His natural one is fretted, but the black one with the rosewood fingerboard would likely have been fretless. Now that you mention it, I don't recall seeing frets on it. Thanks for the info. ;)
 
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